Roderick George

An active performing artist on the operatic and concert stages, tenor Roderick George has garnered acclaim in performances throughout the United States, Spain, Russia, Austria, Ireland, France and the Grand Cayman Islands. Regularly engaged as a soloist in major concert and oratorio works, George’s recent performances have included the Mozart Requiem with the Cayman National Orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Tuscaloosa Symphony, Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus, Hailstork’s Done Made My Vow at Indiana University-South Bend, Leslie Adams’ Hymn to Freedom at the University of California-Irvine, and Carmina Burana with the Shoals Symphony and at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Internationally, his recent solo concert engagements have included performances in Russia with the Orpheus Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Krasnoyarsk Symphony Orchestra. As a music ambassador, he was also honored to perform in concert at the Spaso House of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

On the operatic stage, George has performed a diversity of leading lyric tenor roles including Rodolfo in La Bohéme, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Alfredo in La Traviata, Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess, Roméo in Roméo et Juliette, Gérald in Lakmé, the title role of Albert Herring, Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte, Ralph Rackstraw in HMS Pinafore, Benedict in Beatrice and Benedict, Camille de Rosillion in The Merry Widow, and David in I Was Looking at the Ceiling and then I Saw the Sky.Most recently, he made his company debut with the Pensacola Opera as Beadle Bamford in Sweeney Todd.

As an advocate for the performance and preservation of the American Negro spiritual, George has recorded and toured extensively as a regular soloist with the internationally acclaimed American Spiritual Ensemble. Recent highlights have included appearances at La Folle Journée, the largest classical music festival in France, the American Cathedral in Paris, Wexford Opera House in Ireland, and a concert for broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio. He is also featured as a soloist on two of the ensemble’s recordings, The Spirituals and The Spirit of the Holidays. A champion of American art song, George’s research explores the study and performance of song literature based on poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes. In 2012, he premiered Adolphus Hailstork’s Four Romantic Love Songs for tenor and piano on poems of Dunbar at the African American Art Song Alliance Conference at the University of California-Irvine. In 2013, he premiered four art songs on poetry of African American poets, including two songs on texts by Dunbar and Hughes, composed by Birmingham composer Mary Jackson.

George is professor of music and head of the voice area at the University of Montevallo, where he was named the recipient of the 2013-2014 College of Fine Arts Distinguished Teacher Award. Among his credentials are the Doctor of Music degree in voice performance from the Florida State University College of Music and the Master of Music degree in opera and musical theater from Southern Illinois University (Carbondale). He received advanced training in opera at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. An active member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, he was chosen for the prestigious NATS Teacher-Internship Program held at Colorado State University in 2004, where he studied vocal pedagogy under the tutelage of Clifton Ware. In competition, he was a regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera auditions and the NATS Artist Awards competition, and a finalist and recipient of the Puccini Award in the Orpheus National Competition, among others.